Foods you thought had fewer calories and discovered they didn't when you paid attention

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  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
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    I don't think any single food surprised me. I think what surprised me was what I was really consuming at the end of the day, which makes me sound really dumb considering I knew salad dressing wasn't low calorie--so why did I think eating a huge salad with a ton of chicken, bacon, creamy dressing, cheese, beans, etc-was going to help me lose weight? I think it was before I really understood CICO.
  • kellycasey5
    kellycasey5 Posts: 486 Member
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    Grape nuts. I used to have a bowl with milk, and loved it microwaved. You can imagine my shock when I measured what I poured into my bowl (only 1.5 cups so it didn't seem like that much). At 210 calories for half a cup, plus my milk, that bowl was 720 calories. I'd rather have a fried rice and string bean chicken panda bowl :) Naturally the grapenuts was a healthier choice, but NO WONDER I was gaining weight!
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
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    kellycasey5 wrote: »
    Grape nuts. I used to have a bowl with milk, and loved it microwaved. You can imagine my shock when I measured what I poured into my bowl (only 1.5 cups so it didn't seem like that much). At 210 calories for half a cup, plus my milk, that bowl was 720 calories. I'd rather have a fried rice and string bean chicken panda bowl :) Naturally the grapenuts was a healthier choice, but NO WONDER I was gaining weight!

    Dude. I was literally just thinking about Grape Nuts last night. A roommate who moved out had left some here and I was munching on them. When I looked at the calories I was like "hot damn". Why so many?
  • kellycasey5
    kellycasey5 Posts: 486 Member
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    Honestly I just never even looked because, well, GRAPE NUTS. I guess that is the learning curve. Fig newtons got me too... over 100 calories for ONE in the snack packs. LOL!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    kellycasey5 wrote: »
    Honestly I just never even looked because, well, GRAPE NUTS. I guess that is the learning curve. Fig newtons got me too... over 100 calories for ONE in the snack packs. LOL!

    Really? I thought Fig Newtons were 140 calories for 2...
  • neveragain84
    neveragain84 Posts: 534 Member
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    spacequiztime wrote: »
    Juice. It's not soda, so it must be "healthy"!

    So much this. Many times, these "juices" have just as much sugar and chemicals as sodas do. I used to be one of those people who thought they were healthy until I started looking at ingredients.

  • neveragain84
    neveragain84 Posts: 534 Member
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    otheliemoor wrote: »
    seltzermint wrote: »
    I've never really been that into milkshakes, thankfully. But that's the biggest shocker for me that most of them, even small ones, have at least 600 and sometimes well over 1,000 calories.

    This. Seriously. And smoothies. I used to have a smoothie for lunch sometimes because it was fruit and healthy, I thought. Turns out 900 calories.

    Steak and Shake milkshakes, though otherworldly in deliciousness, make me sad because they are loaded with about a whole meal's worth of calories. I could make my own at home and save myself 300 or so calories.
  • peter56765
    peter56765 Posts: 352 Member
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    runner475 wrote: »
    peter56765 wrote: »
    Trish12a wrote: »
    BodyByButter wrote: »
    Snapeas. Delicious, but same calories as chips.

    OMG!! Seriously?? That is unbelievable. I never knew that.

    Not true. Snap peas are 35-40 calories for 100g (about 1 cup)

    If they are comparing to chips they most likely are referring to
    and it is 28 gms = 120 calories.
    100 gms close to 400 plus calories
    That's my evening snack everyday. Love me some Snapea crisp

    lightlysalted.png

    Never seen those before. I eat snap peas every day at lunch. I grow them in my garden. They look like this:
    UWn5kft.jpg

    or like this after you pick and wash them:
    fCRhZbr.jpg

    They're low calories and quite filling.
  • Lalalindaloo
    Lalalindaloo Posts: 204 Member
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    NUTS!! And maybe not even the calorie count, but more the serving size. I really had no concept of serving size vs calorie count for nuts. I had to be putting away hundreds of calories just grazing a little every time I walked by the container.
  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
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    Tortillas surprised me (both in calories & fat).
    And pasta. And rice. I love them both, so this is a Very Sad Thing. :cry: :cry: :cry:
    And peanut butter, which really shouldn't have surprised me at all. I can see now that my usual PBJ used to be 700 calories, and sometimes when I was really hungry I'd have 2 of them.
    No wonder I was so fat. :confused:
  • jke78
    jke78 Posts: 59 Member
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    I've watched my mom diet all my life so calories in food never really shocks me, I get it. But when I started calorie counting and started weighing and figuring up my additives, like creamer, ketchup, mustard, pickles and relish(not the calories but the sodium) I was surprised at how much they counted for the bulk of my day.
  • bigislandgrrl
    bigislandgrrl Posts: 196 Member
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    I was shocked to see that in a lot of cases you could find a sugary crap cereal that gave you a bigger serving with less calories than a more healthy cereal ie:grape nuts, granola, kashi. A bowl of Berry Berry Kix was my treat if I had calories left over... Now I have a taste for rice krispies, puffed corn or puffed wheat. I use very little milk so my cereal is barely wet but still as satisfying.
    (Butter wasn't a shocker so much as realizing that I was putting away a half a stick a day before mfp - whoa!)
  • tigerblue
    tigerblue Posts: 1,526 Member
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    Pretty much everything is higher calorie than I thought! And it adds up fast!

    One of my happy discoveries, however, has been that a donut is lower in calories than a bagel. Yay!!!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    tigerblue wrote: »
    Pretty much everything is higher calorie than I thought! And it adds up fast!

    One of my happy discoveries, however, has been that a donut is lower in calories than a bagel. Yay!!!

    Eh depends of the donut, lol.
  • Mauigirl62
    Mauigirl62 Posts: 55
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    I love ranch dressing, and only the real thing will do. But when I go out to eat and order a salad with ranch dressing I get it on the side and just dip my forkfuls of salad into it and get a little taste on each bite. I usually eat less than a tablespoon that way and keep within a reasonable calorie and fat goal. Pasta was indeed surprising to me, as someone else said - it is more calorie dense than I realized and of course a serving is much less than I usually eat!
  • bonniejo
    bonniejo Posts: 787 Member
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    I wish I could eat snap peas.... stupid oral allergy!
  • amoods05
    amoods05 Posts: 32 Member
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    BodyByButter wrote: »
    Snapeas. Delicious, but same calories as chips.

    sugar snappeas have the same calories as chips?
  • melimomTARDIS
    melimomTARDIS Posts: 1,941 Member
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    granola, peanut butter, salad dressing, and vegetable oil.
  • geminiswede
    geminiswede Posts: 903 Member
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    I echo everyone who has said milkshakes. Like, I knew they were bad and high calorie, but then actually looking at the real numbers was that much worse. Another thing nutrition-wise is that I didn't realize just how much sodium lunch meat has in it. I always thought of sandwiches as being a relatively healthy lunch, but when you're trying to watch out for blood pressure....yeesh. And on the flip side, I was surprised when I found out just how little calories are in coffee when you drink it black. At least that's one habit I don't have to completely cut back on.
  • cheshirecatastrophe
    cheshirecatastrophe Posts: 1,395 Member
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    I was very sad, and felt very foolish, to learn there are no "zero calorie foods" (i.e. foods that take more calories to digest than they contain). Also that a zero on a nutrition label does not necessarily mean 0, it just means it rounds down to zero for that infinitesmally small serving size. (1/3 second of cooking spray, anyone?)

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